Above all else, ability must guide admissions decisions

Posted: Thursday, April 01, 2004

I have just finished reading your article about the University of Georgia's continuing obsession with diversity issues.

The admissions faculty and staff are now struggling to include geographic and socioeconomic factors into their admissions policy in an attempt to boost minority enrollment. It seems to me the university's job should be to accept all able applicants, and the parent's and local high school's job is to boost the number of people interested in a college education.

I think it would be interesting to apply the university's acceptance criteria to sports programs. Would the teams be better off if they had more athletes with varying backgrounds? Why don't we push for more Asians on the football team or more women for that matter. Perhaps we need more Jewish basketball players in order to offer a more ''rounded'' experience for those on the court. If ability becomes a secondary criteria, then should we not entertain the idea of having more athletes who are slower and weaker but are from a less represented slice of the demographic pie?

My point is not to belittle or disparage any group of people (I'm sure there are plenty of great Asian and Jewish athletes - that really is not the point). What I am trying to point out is bypassing ability as the criteria for admission to any of these fields leads to ludicrous statements and pursuits. Athletic teams are not and can not be run in any way other than to pick the best of the best. It is the reason that the predominantly white teams of the earlier half of the last century became more inclusive - not because the team needed black or hispanic athletes but because they needed good athletes.

Academic pursuits are the same at the university level. Contrary to the popular opinion in this country, we need to support as many people of ability as we can regardless of where they are from and what they look like, ''social engineering'' be damned.